While reading the October issue of Scientific American I came upon an interesting quote from the author of the book, The Nutmeg’s Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis by Amitav Ghosh. Ghosh used what happened when the Dutch East India Company occupied the nutmeg plantations on the Banda Islands in Indonesia as an illustration of, “the unre-strainable excess that lies hidden at the heart of the vision of the world-as-resource – an excess that leads ultimately not just to genocide but to an even greater violence, an impulse that can only be called ‘omni-cide’, the desire to destroy everything.”

My reaction to this observation was along the lines of “Holly Cow!!! He nailed it.” All of the excesses that seem to be plaguing the world are rooted in this idea that we can, and should, take as much of everything as we can; rather than a vision that of the world-as-home. If the world is “home” then there is no benefit to taking from it, no benefit in destroying it, no benefit in grabbing as much as possible as soon as possible – because it is all right here right now.

The issues all seem to ultimately (and often directly) lead to many (or most) of the problems in the world hinge on the vision that it is necessary and important to take as much out of the “commons” (the shared resources of the world) as possible, otherwise someone else might get it and I will lose out.

The reason that this hit me so hard is that first off it seems obviously true. Just look in any direction and there it is, we call the drive to take as much as possible “greed” but in reality it is much closer to the vision that the world-as-resource to be taken and used. But… this is just a vision. Visions are just thoughts, dreams, made-up mental models – they have no actual substance, no mass, and require no actual energy (no ergs are required) to sustain or change. You don’t have to fire up a bunch of big generators to change a view or a point of view, it can just happen – no resources required. Perhaps this is the direction that people such as Greta Thunberg are pointing to. She, and others like her, are pointing the a new world where we don’t find a need to only take – they are pointing to a world where we can share, manage and protect. Why not? This seems reasonable to me. The sun and earth provide more than we (people, animals, plants, everybody) needs if we just back off trying to grab as much as we can – as if we could somehow gather it all up and take it to another planet (or with us when we die). We can’t, it is here and that is great.

I am beginning to read the book, “Smoke Screen” Debunking Wildfire Myths to Save Our Forests and our Climate by Chad Hanson. While this book is about wildfires and “saving the world”, I came upon a couple of sentences that I would like to quote here because they might have a much more universal applicability. Here they are:

“Now for the good news: you are being deceived. If everything you were told almost daily about forests, wildfires, and climate were true, there would be little hope. The truth, however, is that hope lies just beyond the falsehoods.” The paragraph continues with, “There is still time to avert the worst impacts of the climate crisis if we act with urgency and purpose to rapidly transition beyond carbon fuel consumption, dramatically increase forest protection, and simultaneously enact adaptation measures to help the most vulnerable communities. For this three-tier path forward to work, we much be willing to question long-held myths and assumptions that are acting as impediments to meaningful progress.”

I found this to be interesting because perhaps it contains a kind of universal truth about what keeps us (whoever you define as “us”) from finding effective solutions to the myriad of problems that keep frustrating us in our goals to “make the world a better place.” Perhaps we hide the solutions from ourselves because we are so locked into our myths and assumptions that we can’t see another way.

We finally got an opportunity to return to our cabin in the Sierras. It is located on the peninsula of Lake Almanor, right in the center of the huge Dixie fire in Northern California. The fire is approaching a million acres and is now 75% contained, but is finally out along the major roads in that area. The air quality impact from smoke at our cabin has decreased to a tolerable “moderate” air quality index instead of more than double the beginning of the “hazardous” range. The hazardous range is 300 and above. According to a neighbor, it was above 800 for a couple of weeks at our cabin. We decided to go check it out because the power was back on, the air was tolerable, and they were allowing people back into the evacuated zones. When we got there it was a little different than that because they had once again turned off the power, and on Monday the air was awful (unhealthy) once again. Our cabin is located in the center of a doughnut hole surrounded by vast burned up forests, none of that is visible at our cabin. You wouldn’t know there had been a fire except for the 1/2 inch or so of ash covering everything and many 2 inch chunks of burned bark scattered around the yard. The road to Chester went through miles of burned forest, with vast areas of black ground and black poles that used to be green trees.

One of the truly amazing things that we found (besides all of the burned trees) was scale of the “emergency” logging under way. I have lived in logging country most of my life, but have never seen anything approaching the scale of these activities. Everywhere you look there are hug piles of logged trees, ready to be picked up and taken to the mills. We passed dozens of logging operations, with many tractors, yarders, trucks, loggers, etc. They are clearcutting everything back a few hundred feet from the roads, and apparently vast areas of burnt forest beyond the view from the roads, but judging from the new logging roads and number of log trucks on the roads, they are really busy everywhere. It is an amazing sight. It is my understanding that the rush to cut everything down as soon as possible is that while the trees are only burned less than 1/2 inch deep into the bark, they are now dead and will dry out quickly- becoming useless for making lumber. They need to be milled quickly if they are to be “salvaged” – hence the feeling of emergency in these operations.

It happened that a really interesting program was on NPR while we were driving up to the cabin. (Ref: North State Public Radio out of Chico, September 10, Blue Dot #229, After the Fire featuring Chad Hanson PhD, Ecologist working for the John Muir Project). Dr. Hanson was explaining that there is a better way to approach fire safety while creating sustainable ecosystems than the current approach being implemented by the government (both California and the Feds).

His first point is that large, and very large, fires are a natural part of the ecosystems in California. The forests have not only regularly burned for a few million years, but the ecosystems have evolved to not only tolerate the fires, but to depend upon the fires for their existence. Big fires are not a disaster, they are the very things that have made California the beautiful and diverse environment that it is. Hundreds of acres of black poles sticking out of the ground might be rather unappealing immediately after a fire, they are the beginnings of new, healthy ecosystems. Basically, these fires should be considered to be good news because they are ensuring the future health of the forests, not a disaster. While there is a temporary problem with the “esthetics” of a burned area, we should not base our forest management practices upon what looks nice – we should base it upon science and sustainable practices for the entire ecosystem (not just ongoing logging practices).

Dr. Hanson described what happens to the ecosystem following a fire in very compelling, and hopeful, terms. First come the beetles, then come the woodpeckers to eat the beetles, then come other birds to live in the holes made by the woodpeckers, then the raptors (hawks and eagles) eating the birds and squirrels, etc. Then the plants that depend upon fire for procreation and health reseed, etc. Basically, the forest quickly starts to regrow, revitalize and become healthy. It is the process that has happened for thousands and thousands of years, and will happen again if we let it be. However, if we cut down the dead trees clear-cut and plant new trees, then there are no beetles, no birds, no squirrels, no regeneration of vegetation, etc. He considers what we are currently doing to be a very expensive subsidized logging practice. The loggers get paid to “clear” the land, get permits to plant trees where they couldn’t before, are allowed to clear cut where that practices has been outlawed – all in the name of “salvaging” dead trees (as if they had no value other than wood for lumber). The practice destroys the forest ecology in the name of more logging.

Dr. Hanson suggests letting the fires burn, letting the burned forests rejuvenate according to “nature’s way”, and use the saved money to make existing human things fire safe and to protect those things when necessary. He also suggests avoiding building more houses in dangerous, fire prone areas. He offered a lot of interesting, logical, but new to me ways to easily and affordably reduce fire risks to homes and structures.

I found it quite interesting to have just listened to his presentation and then be driving through those areas an hour or so later. What struck me most was the LACK of devastation in the burned out areas. It was not even close to being completely burned – the fire appeared to jump around. Some places burned the ground clear and burned all the limbs off of the trees. In other places it just burned the ground cover and brush, other areas were untouched. Obviously there is a lot remaining that can quickly colonize the burned areas. In the burned areas, it was clear that the ground had been greatly fertilized by the thick layer of ash. When looking through my new “eco-friendly” eyes I saw that the burned areas looked “right” and the logged areas to be the actual areas of devastation. Perhaps clearing next to the roads to maintain access during fires makes sense. Perhaps it makes some sense to remove the dead trees to minimize road hazards due to falling trees and the like. Other than that, it was clear that it was really just a glut of subsidized logging.

I ordered Dr. Hanson’s book, Smoke Screen, to see what else he has to say about improved forest management practices and fire “proofing” homes in fire hazardous areas (since I live in a fire dangerous location and have a summer cabin in another). I don’t know where I will land with these thoughts after reading his book and doing further research, but my instinct is that he is correct – we are continuing to destroy our forests in the name of “smokey the bear” and subsidized logging.

I spent most of last week as part of a review committee in preparation for the annual joint status director’s review. I find these to be extremely interesting meetings because they talk about the detailed status for the construction of the Rubin Observatory and it’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) telescope. My role is this team is to evaluate the status report from the point of view of safety, which in my case means “System Safety”. I have always been a tiny bit of an astronomy “geek” (maybe really a wannabee geek – on the outside looking in). Being on this team met a lot of my lifetime goals of somehow being involved in BIG science, particularly big astronomy science.

I have been working on this project as a safety consultant for the past five years – but there are always some new things that I didn’t know about, or perhaps didn’t fully appreciate. This year’s review was no exception.

The LSST is a very large (about 27 feet in diameter), with a HUGE 3200 megapixel camera. It is designed to perform a ten-year full sky survey of the southern sky (because it is located in Chile where that is what you can see). Once operational in 2023 (or thereabouts), it will take 15-second “snapshots” of the sky, moving between shots to eventually get the entire visible sky each night. Each snapshot is about the size of 40 full moons. While this seems to be a pretty large piece of the sky, the camera is so large with such a high resolution that it will find LOTS of things to look at. At last week’s meeting they mentioned that it is expected that the telescope will identify and catalog 30 billion (yes, with a B) galaxies, something like 17 billion stars, and 7 or 8 billion other things (such as comets, asteroids, and who knows what else). The changes in position and other things such as color will be recorded and monitored.

One of the primary purposes of this new type of telescope is to gather information that might help understand dark matter. Of course, with that much information it will undoubtedly be critical in a LOT of other astrophysics explorations. One of the really cool things about this telescope project is that the data will be made freely available to anyone that might be interested – including you, me, and k-12 STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) programs.

Mainly I am writing this just to express my awe – not so much about the technology of the telescope (although that is awe inspiring), but that the vastness of the universe that is so large that they can find 30 billion GALAXIES!!! Holly molly – and that is just the part that they expect to be able to see, identify and study. This telescope will be able to see things that are 10,000 times dimmer than the dimmest that the Hubble Telescope can resolve. Amazing.

So where could all of this immense amount of matter and energy come from? How odd – I try to think about it and my mind just kind of flops around out of control, it just makes no sense in any way shape or form to me.

I just completed a “little” video project and am writing this as a sort of celebration of completion (I hope). For the past few years I have been presenting a six hour seminar at the System Safety Society’s (SSS) annual conference. The Executive officers decided that a service that we should be providing to our membership includes a series of tutorial/seminars covering some of the more important aspects of the profession. Since nobody was stepping up to this I agreed to do it one time as a kind of “placeholder” of the idea, with the understanding that the SSS would form a team to work on these seminars. I partnered up with a friend, Russ Mitchell, on this project. I developed and presented an introductory class on the technical aspects of the profession, Russ did the same for the management aspects.

Of course, during the intervening year nobody else offered to assist, so we got to do it again and the next conference. This was of concern to me because while I thought my presentation was “adequate” it was by no means representative of the best that we can do as an organization. I threw it together in a hurry because the decision to do this was close to the conference date. Unfortunately, the second version wasn’t much better. Basically it was the same presentation with a few changes to reflect things I had noticed the first time around. I was still presenting to new/novice individuals (after-all it is an introductory course), without the assistance or feedback from our seasoned members. Without critical feedback I essentially did this same as before.

Then it came time for the third year and not only didn’t I get any feedback or assistance, but this time was a “covid year” so it had to be done via zoom rather than as an in-person standup presentation. This new venue demanded several changes to the presentation, but the biggest change was that I recorded it as a zoom presentation. That was pretty good, but it was just slides with me talking in the background. Perhaps it was perfect – since I got no feedback it is hard to know.

This year it happened again, now it seems to have become “my” presentation! It was supposed to be the Society’s presentation, representing the desires and directions of the Society as a whole. Instead, it is now just whatever I want it to be. Not a good situation. However, I decided to attempt to “spiff it up” a bit and use an actual video camera instead of the zoom camera, and edit the presentation using a video editing suite in the hopes of making it run smoother – giving me the chance to stop, go back, reshoot etc. I put the camera far enough away so that I could stand or sit on a stool during my delivery. I shot myself against a green screen, and put the slides, photos and video clips in a box next to me in post production (I overlaid the various parts five layers deep – the background, the slides, the header icons, the footer icons, and myself.) I don’t know if it made it any better, but it was a more interesting project to me.

My first “studio” was intended to be the pottery studio I had just finished building for my wife. I has good lighting an appropriate blank wall to shot against. However, the AC hadn’t been installed yet and therefore the room got pretty warm in the Sacramento Valley summer. So hot that I was quickly drenched in sweat – totally unsuitable for presentation purposes. I therefore moved to a room in the house that has air conditioning. Much better, but I had to install so many lights that I still could only go for about 30 minutes before becoming visibly wet. That was alright, it limited my “on screen” time to something more tolerable. I ended up spending several days setting up the space to get the green screen correct, placing the camera, testing the audio, moving production lights around to get them right and that sort of thing.

As usual, the shooting of the raw material is the quick and easy part. It is the editing, blending, adjusting in the video program that burns up hours. I have done this a few times in the past for some little “travel logs” of places we have visited. I find that it takes about an hour of editing for each minute of finished product. I would take more to get it really “right” (and would usually take some reshooting of things that I didn’t get quite right but wished I had). Since I had six hours of material, at that rate it would take me 360 hours of editing – not in my preferred schedule. So I took the route of making a pretty rough video and only spent about 15 minutes per minute (about 80 hours). I came out “ok” – but not what I would have liked to do. I guess I could have saved a lot of time by just giving it “live” in zoom.

The good part is that I am done. An even better part is that my current opinion is that I won’t do it again next year – they can just replay this video. Of course, what is going to happen and we will have a live conference and I’ll end up giving it live again. But in the mean time we can use it for an on-line webinar. Who knows, maybe we can even charge for it and make a few bucks to support the desperately poor SSS. Almost all of our income comes from the annual conference, and the last two years of zoom conferences really depleted our resources. I am afraid that the Society will dissolve if we don’t find some better ways to get some income – soon. This webinar was my attempt at doing something along those lines. Hopefully it will work, but probably it won’t. Anyway, I finished the project in a rather amateurish way, but had fun and learned a lot along the way.

I have a bunch of relatives that refuse to get vaccinated. They have a lot of excuses for this, including “loss of personal freedom”, “it hasn’t been tested long enough”, “we don’t know what might come from it x-years from now,” “it is a liberal conspiracy,” “covid is not dangerous, it is just like the normal flu,” and more.

That brings up the question of whether or not it is “acceptable” for them to not get vaccinated. My opinion is that it is perfectly fine for them to take that approach. Perhaps it exposes them to what they consider an “acceptable risk” and they are willing to take that chance. My risk acceptance criteria is different than that, but we all use different metrics and criteria – so have at it. No vaccines, no masks, your choice. Sort of.

The “sort of” part is similar to having a desire to drive an automobile really, really fast – extremely dangerously fast. Is that alright? Certainly – as long as you do it where you don’t endanger others, especially others that don’t want to partake in your risk decisions. You can drive 250 mph as much as you want, but not down my street or on the freeways. As a society we place very few limitations upon the amount of danger an individual can engage in as long as it remains personal to them. That means the results of their risky behavior are local to them, not “shared” with others, with the environment, with the economy, with the medical system or anything else. If you want to take the chance of killing or maiming yourself, have at it as long as you aren’t endangering me, damaging our shared resources or costing me anything.

Not getting vaccinated, and not wearing a mask (etc) is the same situation as engaging in other forms of risky behavior. As long as you strictly quarantine for the duration, have at it. That means NO contact with others. No grocery stores, no restaurants, no schools, no parties, no doctors, no hospitals, no gatherings of any sort. Engaging in any of these sorts of activities exposes you, and thus others, to being infected and continuing the pandemic – in which case you are impacting our shared resources and it is no longer acceptable for you to make these choices for me or others. If you want to create a “pod” that include more people in strict quarantine with you, that would be great! Perfect in fact, much better than masking and vaccinations. However, should the quarantine be broken and someone in the pod gets infected – they shouldn’t be able to shared resources such as the use of medical or hospital facilities. They knew the risks, made their choices, and that is how it should end. If they survive, great. If not, so be it – that’s life. Easy as pie.

Of course the problem is that none of those that are not going to play by the rules involving vaccinations, masks, distancing, sanitation, etc will play by these rules either. They definitely want to have their cake and eat it too. So now it comes down to the question of how do we (society) enforce it. Do we do like automobiles and create a “covid patrol” sort of like the highway patrol? Monitoring, investigations, fines, arrests, jail time including convictions for manslaughter should someone die because of your risky behavior? This is obviously what should happen because people clearly won’t self monitor – which is why we have the highway patrol.

Without an enforcement agency it is up to individual morals, ethics, patriotism and love of community. We know where that lands – people are very happy to enforce those traits for others, but not so willing to self monitor and self control. Given the inability to enforce a strict quarantine (the only known viable option to vaccinations, masking, distancing and sanitation at this time), about all that we can do is say “shame on you” for endangering your friends, family, neighbors and the United States of America. The 800,000+ deaths belong squarely on your shoulders, and any additional deaths and sicknesses pile on them too. If you refuse to take the necessary protections, them YOU are responsible for what happens in the future. Sure, it might be that it would all continue in any case, we can never know the future – but we do know what will work for now and if you don’t control your actions we do know it won’t stop. Kind of like driving 200 mph down the freeway. Perhaps you can do it and nobody dies – perhaps not. If enough people do that surely many will die. We really do have to work together to get past this – and quarantining is a great solution, perhaps the best. So for all of you that don’t trust the vaccine, go for it – we can talk on zoom and might get together again in a few years (or however long it takes for this to pass). Otherwise, do the next best things – and you know what they are.

I had a lucid dream the other night that is perhaps writing about. It started in a new mountain cabin being built by a friend of mine that died last fall. He wasn’t there, but I knew who had built it. It was a nice “woodsy” sort of place, with stairs leading up to a sleeping loft. I was casually inspecting the workmanship, thinking that he had done a better job than I would have expected (I wasn’t aware of him having woodworking skills or experience), but the design of the stairs was not so great. No handrail, not a big enough landing at the bottom, too steep – that sort of thing. While looking the place over my brother (who died about two years ago) came in to visit and we discussed the building a bit. He “comes to visit” me now and then, so that wasn’t really so out of the ordinary – but it did help me realize that I was in a dream and in the realm of the dead. My brother told me that our friend Rocke was in the other room if I wanted to go talk to him, which I did. He was in his old comfortable easy chair, just kind of chilling out. He seemed quite pleased that I can come to visit, and then told me about the heart attack that killed him. He described it as mostly a lot of pressure, not much pain, and he wasn’t frightened because he was ready for something to come along at some point. He seemed quite content and in good sprites (pun intended). About that time a young girl (perhaps five years old) came into the room to talk to him. He excused himself to give her his full attention, so I said my goodbyes and added that I looked forward to seeing him again. He said that was unlikely, he just stopped by for a little bit to let me know that all is well with him.

So there, yet another odd dream about meeting up with lost friends and relatives. I have had these after each of the most important people in my life died. My older brother, my mother, my father, and the brother that was in this dream. I suppose it is all in my head, just my mind saying goodbye to loved ones – but it is always so comforting to see them, get a chance to say my goodbyes without too much drama happening, and that they seem at peace (or happy) with the situation. These dreams aren’t “normal” fleeting dreams where things keep changing and all that. They are solid, lucid, full color dreams that I recall for many years afterward. The first that I had with my brother included being in a rose garden, smelling the strong bouquet of the flowers. Since then I have heard “dream experts” claim that it is impossible to smell in dreams – I know that is in fact false because I did it.

I don’t put too much stock on these dreams. I don’t think that I am somehow talking to the dead, but I don’t discount that possibility either. Whatever is happening is a “real” experience, one that I like and helps me accept the passing of loved ones. Is the event somehow an experience of a “real” thing? Who knows, and I don’t think it actually matters much. I am certain that our experiences of life are by and large dreams that we create in our mind’s eye – so these aren’t all that much different no matter how I consider them.

I had an interesting, and confusing, experience earlier this week. I was sitting in my home office working on a project at my desk when a stranger appeared in my window asking for assistance. My home is located in the middle of a very large agricultural area in California, the closest “town” (of about 20 people) is located five miles away – it is where my post-office box is located (we are too far out in the unpopulated rural area to get postal delivery). There aren’t many (any) strangers wandering by out here. My office window opens directly onto the front porch, so anyone going to the front door passes with about five feet from me. It is extremely rare for anyone to come to the front door, so it is always a bit of a surprise when they do. This time I say a guy walk by my window and assumed it was an Amazon delivery guy or something like that. But it wasn’t.

The young man standing at my window asking for assistance appeared to be perhaps in his 20’s. He was pretty scruffy, bedraggled, and possibly “dangerous”. However, there we were so I talked to him. He said that he had gone to a local Indian Casino with a buddy the previous evening. He went into the casino, leaving his friend with the car. When he came out again the car and his friend were gone. So then he was stuck about 20 miles from town, without a car, without any money, and without a cell phone. Nobody besides his friend knew where he was, and he didn’t know his way around the neighborhood (or this part of the Sacramento Valley), not even knowing how far he was from his home. So he did what he did, which was to start walking toward his home (hopefully). He said he had walked all night, and all morning until finding me at around 2:00 pm.

He looked like he had just walked for hours in the 100 degree heat. It is only 15 miles, so even if he only walked 2 miles per hour it is only 7 or 8 hours, so I assumed it felt like walking for 16 hours. I suspect he actually slept under a bush or something some of that time. In any case, it was too hot to send him back out to continue walking and he was too scruffy (and potentially dangerous) to invite in (especially in these times of the pandemic). He was trying to figure out how to get the rest of the way home, about 60 miles on country roads. So that brought me to the question of “what do I do now?”

I thought about calling emergency services to get him some help. Being on the local fire department, I knew that would bring fireman and at least two big fire trucks – impressive, but would do no good. It would also eventually bring a local sheriff – who would probably take him to some sort of holding facility until such time that they decided that he was safe to let go. They would let him out, putting him ten more miles from home but still without money or transportation.

There aren’t any public transportation services, such as buses, anywhere around here so I couldn’t give him 20 dollars and tell him to get a bus. I suppose I could pay a taxi to take him home, costing at least $150, perhaps more.

I asked him to sit on a bench on my front porch to wait for a little while I thought about it and finished a project I was working on. My wife gave him some sandwiches and fruit (and the rest of my bag of Cheetos!!). I finished up my project in about 30 minutes and went to check on him. He seemed alright, polite and friendly. So I decided to give a ride home (a three hour round trip for me). It went fine and we shared stories along the way. His story of his life was a troubled one. His mother is in prison, he lives with his older brother, his car broke down and he has no money or income so it stays that way. His “work” seems to be a little gardening for people now and then and searching for gold in the Feather River. Neither sounded particularly lucrative. I left him with a few dollars that I had in my wallet – which probably went for beer. Now I will need to get a covid test in a couple of days

So there I was sitting in my office, wondering what the proper and compassionate thing to do might be. Was taking him home the correct choice? I felt like I was putting myself in harm’s way by doing that, but also felt like at some point you just do that sort of thing. I did it fairly regularly as a volunteer fireman – doing dangerous things for total strangers for no pay is part of that job. I asked my wife is she was good with me taking the chance, and she was – so we were sort of partners on this choice. I thought about what an old friend of mine that died last year would have done – he would have done what I did. Was giving him money helpful? Or did that just turn into a hangover? Maybe that is out of my hands – I offered help, if he accepted it as help that’s good, I hope it wasn’t leading him into a bad thing.

This experience reminded me once again that it is such a sad situation when there are so many young people in a similar situation everywhere you look. Homeless folks, people with homes but not enough income or potential for the future, people couch surfing as a way of living. I wonder if we (Society) are going to find a solution, or will this just keep getting worse? It looks to me like we have more people than jobs – so maybe there is no solution. That situation is getting worse as automation continues to increase. Right now there are lots of jobs open because of covid, but nobody is taking them I suppose in part because it is dangerous to do so, it is more fun to not work, and welfare might be sufficient to get along without working. The Federal government was providing assistance of up to $300 a week since last December, ending in three days from now on September 4. I suppose you could live on $300 a week ($16,000 a year), but not comfortably. This is the equivalent of $7.50 a hour and doesn’t get you very far. (For comparison, the poverty level in California is $12,500 a year for a single person.) There are other sources of income, such as food stamps, that help with this so perhaps it is workable. Cutting off that flow of Federal money in three days is going to make this a pretty tough time. I don’t think many people avoid working because their life is so cushy living on the dole. However, perhaps it is not very enticing to go to work when the pay for working is below the poverty line – and just cuts off some of the other benefits.

It doesn’t seem reasonable to me to let people live in abject poverty because employers can keep pay so very low. It isn’t like those at the bottom of the ladder have much bargaining power – they are in a “take it or leave it” situation. I have no answers, but spending a couple of hours with that young man really remindedd me to feel a tiny bit of the plight of so many folks today. I sometimes sit down and talk to homeless folks (at least I did before the pandemic), and found them to be just plain down and out, with no good way to claw their way to a better life. They are stuck – it seems like we need to find ways to be more compassionate and helpful.

I am hesitant to talk about covid again, but since it is apparently going to be around for awhile longer I will give it another shot. As a System Safety engineer, I have some pretty well developed ideas about topics such as “risk”, “acceptable risk”, “hazard” and things like that – and assumed that my points of view are pretty well in line with my colleagues in the system safety profession. Based upon some things I have recently heard and read by some of them, apparently I am not correct about that assumption. Last week I attended a three day System Safety conference where there were some discussions on this topic, and I see current Facebook posts by others that remind me how difficult this issue seems to be. Our differences seem to be wrapped up in an odd mixture of misunderstanding the science behind the problem, feelings about moral and ethical responsibilities that we have for each other, a desire to “get on with it”, and the proper boundaries of personal “freedom” in a large highly interdependent society like we have in the United States (and worldwide for that matter).

An issue that I came upon at the conference was a presentation concerning how covid is transmitted and how vaccines work. It was an excellent, and interesting, presentation until it came to the final conclusions. One of the final conclusions was along the lines of, “If a vaccine prevents the virus from entering human cells, then it is impossible for that person to create more viruses and therefore impossible to spread the disease to others. Therefore, it is impossible for a vaccinated person to create more viruses and become contagious.” The first part is fairly obviously true, and the second part is obviously false based upon current data. The vaccine does NOT prevent the virus from entering the cells (or maybe it doesn’t prevent the virus from entering all cells), and it does NOT prevent a person from catching it, or spreading it. ). The CDC, other health agencies, the daily news broadcasts, and personal discussions with others in the profession make this point over and over and over again. The vaccine is far from 100% effective in preventing infection, and far from 100% in preventing its spread. It is pretty good (around 95%) at preventing serious illness and death of the vaccinated person. The last number that I heard is that it is something like 53% effective in preventing infection and 0% effective at spreading the infection once infected. That’s pretty good, but certainly not nearly good enough to stop the pandemic on its own.

This last point that it is not good enough to stop the pandemic on its own is a critically important part of how we should be moving forward. I am not privy to the “inside” discussions on the topic, but it appears that the hope is to tamp down the symptoms for long enough for almost everyone to get it but not get too sick in the process – in the hopes that natural immunity will kick in to let us achieve something close to “herd immunity.” Maybe this is the approach, but whatever the plan is that seems to be the likely future.

There are two parts to the story of how we should move forward. One part is related to personal safety. Personal safety is enhanced by vaccinations because it greatly reduces the chances of getting really sick, or dying. This is good to a level of something like 95%. Masks are not very effective at providing personal safety because it is almost impossible to seal the mask to the face, letting large amounts of contaminated air past the mask. Anyone that has attempted to properly fit a mask according to OSHA or NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency) understands that while they are good at keeping out big chunks of stuff (dust masks), they don’t do much for smaller particles. A dust mask does not protect from exposure to vapors or gases. When aerosols are present (which is all of the time), distancing is effective, as is staying out of enclosed buildings where aerosols are likely to be present (stores, night clubs, restaurants and the like). Distancing in outdoor situations where there are breezes is probably pretty good. So, you can minimize infections to yourself by masking (to avoid breathing big gobs of gook), isolation and distancing, and you can minimize the severity of an infection with vaccinations.

Then there is the question of the safety of others. Vaccinations reduce the probability of infection if exposed by about 50%. That is pretty good – but certainly not complete. One of the possible issues is that since they have the potential to reduce symptoms without stopping the creation of virus particles, vaccinations have the likely outcome of creating more “stealth” spreaders. Therefore, it is important to implement actions to prevent spreading the virus to others even though being fully vaccinated. The same old protections apply as since the beginning of the pandemic, wearing masks, washing hands, distancing and avoiding in-door venues with others beyond your immediate “pod”.

Masks are very important to protect others when being around people because they are effective as stopping particles from being ejected toward another person. These particles can easily be ejected 6 to 10 feet just by talking, coughing, singing, breathing and more with a big sneeze. The particles can cause spreading because they can contain a very large number of viruses that can get inhaled directly by others, and by contaminating surfaces with moist, infected droplets. Masks are not particularly effective at stopping aerosols (aerosols are particles so small that they float with the air streams, not settling out due to gravity) when breathing in , therefore they are not very protective for the wearer. Billions of aerosol particles are release simply by breathing, and perhaps by evaporation off of the skin. These particles are quite small, but huge in comparison to the size of a virus – therefore they can contain a significant viral load. It is estimated that it takes a few hundred virus particles to cause infection, and that tens of thousands (or more) can easily be included on a single aerosol particle. However, while not being very good at breathing in, masks are fairly effective at stopping the these tiny particles when breathing out (protecting others).

A thing that is often not understood about aerosols is that they are FAST, and gain their speed by interactions with the air – not so much by the projection forces when expelled. Think about cigar smoke in a room. There is almost no projectile forces involved, but it doesn’t take very long to smell the cigar. This means that it didn’t take very long for the aerosols (the smoke) to get across the room. If you can smell the smoke (or anything else), you could have been exposed to a virus riding on an aerosol particle of a similar size. Aerosols travel at about 500 mph, generally in a complex path that quickly “fills” a very large space.

To prevent exposing others it is important to not become infected; it is important to wear a mask, wash your hands regularly, remain isolated as much as possible, get tested if you might have been exposed (to get treatment and fully quarantine yourself if you get infected), and get vaccinated.

For some unimaginable reason the issue of “freedom” seems to creep into the equation. l really don’t get it, but have come to some conclusions on the topic. The first is that personal freedom extends to those things that impact the safety of yourself – it does not extend to situations where your actions impact the safety of others. This idea has been deeply embedded in social rules, laws and regulations for thousands of years – it is not something new. The USA has hundreds (perhaps hundreds of thousands) of instances where laws have been created based upon this framework. In fact, it might be that almost the entire set of laws and social agreements is based upon the concept of “your freedom stops where my nose begins.” You are not free to shoot up a school, to speed through a residential district, to …. you get the picture. So, since we are clearly in a historically risky pandemic the idea of having the personal freedom to spread it is ludicrous. Of course you do NOT have, and should not, have the freedom to cause others to contract the disease and die. That isn’t freedom, it is murder.

However, you DO have the freedom to take the risks as long as you don’t impact others. I have become firmly convinced that this means staying totally away from situations where you might get infected and/or transmit the virus to others. That means an effective quarantine – either alone or in conjunction with a group of your choice – as long as the entire group remains quarantined. If a group wants to create a “bubble” and everyone is willing to stay within that bubble, that would not only be acceptable – it would be perfect and is likely to be the only way we get out of this problem. Have at it!!! However, this means that you have to stay in that bubble if you get sick – no side trips to the doctor or a hospital. If you want to go to a hospital, then that hospital has to be “inside” of your bubble. Otherwise, you have made your choice and society has no responsibility for your care.

So it is an easy choice in my mind – either do everything you can to work with all of society to control and eventually get past the pandemic , or take your own path. I am convinced that either approach is fine, but not both. This is a situation where you can’t have your cake and eat it to. Make a choice, that’s fine – but don’t make MY choice for me.

A neighbor (and friend) sent me a link to a rather disturbing article in the Washington Post questioning the science behind the predictions of global warming. (https://wapo.st/3jVaArg) He sent it as a idea for a “conversation starter” for our little group of neighborhood friends when we get together for our periodic social gatherings. I am not sure how well that would work out as a conversation starter but it did cause me to write a response – perhaps mostly to help myself clarify my thoughts on the topic. I hope you can access the link, but if not it is an opinion piece by a columnist named George F. Will (whom am unfamiliar with and have no knowledge of).

This article is full of rather odd comments that appear to be logical, but aren’t really. For example, he mentions that CNN stated that oceans are warming at the same rate as five Hiroshima bombs per second – and then points out that the sun provides the equivalent of 2000 bombs per second – and then jokes that the comparison makes it clear that the five bombs per second are not important. Those are rather odd units of energy, but the point is that one is talking about changes in the temperature of the ocean, the other is taking about how much energy the sun provides to the earth, which is normally in balance so there oceans normally stay the same temperature. These are totally different topics and there is no comparisons to be made. The issue is that the oceans are heating up, not that there is a lot of energy in sunshine. He also points out that climate and weather are different (as if he is pointing out something different from what is emphasized constantly by the science community), and therefore there is no possible link between changing in weather and changes in climate (and then he adds that of course climate is changing because of what people are doing). He then goes on to say that humans are responsible for almost all of the climate changes, but since there are some difficulties in separating the purely human impact from the “nature” impacts, there is no point in doing anything to try to modify that impact. Then he says that there has been no detectable changes in hurricanes in the last hundred years (a false statement) – he claims that the reason that they are not detectable is that we have better monitoring so the old values are worthless as comparisons (again, a false statement), therefore since the evidence is less than perfect there are no impacts on hurricanes and hence no impacts on weather by climate changes (not related even if it were true). Then he launches into sea level rising not being caused by melting glaciers (perhaps true, and never claimed to be the cause in any case – the current cause is understood to be mostly due to water getting bigger as it gets warmer). He then makes a point that since glaciers might not be causing oceans to rise means that the average temperature in the USA is about the same as it was in 1900 (perhaps true for that year, but totally unrelated to his discussion which at this point is about sea levels). There are a bunch of other disjointed and meaningless comments before he gets to the final summary “zinger” that the projections by the UN that a 3% C increase might impact the economy by 3% by 2100 – and he then explains that during that time the economy is projected to grow by $400 trillion by 2100, and decrease by $388 trillion because of climate change – which is almost a push and therefore the whole concern about climate change (and presumably carbon dioxide levels) is not worth considering, there is no threat if the economy isn’t projected to crash.

Perhaps it would be an interesting place to begin a discussion. My personal opinion is that it is BS, but not just because much of what he says is false, but rather because of so much that was left out. He claims to be making a rational argument to support his contention that climate change is not a problem, but there is really just a bunch of disjointed statements. This is an example of stringing together “facts” taken out of context and then using them to create a narrative that suggests predictions of future actions that happen to suite the person’s philosophy. It would require much more to explain all of the things that we left out, glossed over, or incorrectly interpreted than it took to write the article.

Suffice it to say, my view is along the lines of “ok” – but so what? The author focuses his attention on what journalists say the scientists say, even though the scientists say no such thing. He is attempting to make the point that since journalists make incorrect, and misleading statements concerning what the scientists are saying that somehow the science is wrong.

A similar thing is happening with the covid issues, especially over the issues of masking and vaccinations. It is almost impossible to find any news that correctly states what the science folks are saying and have been saying for months. The problem isn’t with the scientists, the problem is that the journalists (and politicians) that are ‘interpreting’ the science know almost nothing about either the science, or even how to listen to what scientists are saying. Unfortunately, politicians seem to be even worse than journalists in that regard.

For example, yesterday I heard on the news that all school employees need to either be vaccinated OR tested weekly. This is close to one of the stupidest things that I have heard so far. For one thing, it takes significantly less time than a week to go from “testing clear” to being contagious. Obviously weekly testing won’t catch that, and it wouldn’t be a once in awhile failure to catch the problem, it will be every time someone catches it and then takes it to the schools. The science says that this approach will not work. For this approach to work the testing has to be frequent enough to be able to catch that someone has been infected before they have a chance to spread it – and that isn’t compatible with the once a week model. I am not even certain that it works at all. In addition, the science says that being vaccinated does not stop a person from being infected and spreading it. As far as I can determine, it probably doesn’t even reduce the likelihood of being contagious. The vaccinations minimize the outcome, but not the frequency. So what good does that do for the kids who haven’t been vaccinated ? None. So according to “science” the new demand is not likely to be very effective. Does this mean that the science is wrong? Nope – it means that it is being interpreted for to achieve goals other than protecting the students.

The same things are happening with the stuff about climate change. It isn’t that the science is “wrong” (understanding that by definition science is never “right”), but it is being interpreted to meet other goals.

Just my humble opinion, still interested in talking about these things, but the discussion is complex and long.